This paper shows that reference letters from former employers alleviate information asymmetries about workers'skills and improve both match quality and equity in the labor market. A resume audit study finds that using a reference letter in the application increases callbacks by more than 60...

Do public sector workers earn a wage premium in Djibouti and are the returns to education different across the sectors? The authors estimate private and public sector wage earnings using 1996 household survey data, while controlling for selectivity using Heckman's two stage approach. They find...

A void in the literature on the business environment is how it evolves over time. Focusing on China during its crucial two decades of transition (from the early 1990s to the early 2010s), this paper documents how the country's business environment and the characteristics of entrepreneurs...

An expanding body of literature has shown that better management practices can offer significant boosts to firms' productivity; this research illustrates that firms in South America are no exception. Using recent Enterprise Survey data from seven countries in South America (Argentina, Bolivia,...

Public sectors in the Pacific Islands are frequently described as being' too big' and as' crowding out' private sector economic activity. Reducing their size, it follows, would provide much-needed space for private sector expansion and result in higher levels of economic growth. This paper...